When I first wrote about FSAD last year, I had a number of comments from readers, saying some version of “finally, a lone voice in the wilderness,” to “you don’t know my wife.”
A recent question from a reader egged me on to revisit the topic, partly because she was sure I was trying to say there is no such thing as FSAD, Female Sexual Affective Disorder.
So, let’s get that cleared up right away. Read More→
Women’s orgasms have been the butt of comics, trashy movies, and even the press.
It’s a common belief that men give their women orgasms, and all orgasms stop with menopause.
Neither of those beliefs are true. Yet many women, especially older women who have already been through menopause are sure that their time for orgasms are over. Or, if you are one of those women who have never had an orgasm, you may well be sure you never will.
Again, not true. Read More→
Trying to understand how many women have FSAD is like trying to get an accurate number for how many man have ED.
Most of us haven’t even heard of it….Female Sexual Affective Disorder. (For more information about how it was defined...see this post.)
The answer is…it all depends on who asks and how they ask. And then analyzing the results you get.
Before we get into research issues though, let’s be clear: there are both men who have ED and women who have FSAD. From medical causes, from emotional issues, and of course, relationship difficulties.
But, and this is the big issue, for both men and women, there are incidence statistics all over the map. Depending on how it is defined, measured, or the numbers interpreted, there could be “the majority of men/women are suffering because of (insert cause here)” to “few men/women actually have this problem, the rest are included to increase the opportunity to sell a solution.”
For all men and women, there are times that they “just don’t feel like it.”
Maybe because of stress in their life, a bad cold, or plain old fatigue from a very demanding day.
Could this really be FSAD…or just really being tired out?
Or, could there have been an angry blow up in a relationship that is by and large in good shape. Then, sex is off the table.
Hard to characterize this as FSAD.
How about a lingering bladder infection, or trouble with “jock itch (for either men or women!), or any one of a number of annoying everyday medical issues that leaves most of us feeling like…no sex tonight.
I haven’t even mentioned the side effects of medications…especially high blood pressure, heart conditions, and, my personal pet peeve, psychiatric drugs…especially for depression.
Let’s see….I am feeling really down, so give me something that takes away my libido. Talk about a double whammy…especially for women who have been prescribed tranquilizers or anti-depressants for a situtional issue and are still taking them six to ten years later.
No wonder they aren’t interested in sex…
Add a bad case of menopause…a young adult child moving back in with their spouse or baby…and the list can go on.
FSAD is real…it does happen…but like ED, in too many cases it has become one more opportunity for the drug companies to advertise, the media to have more ad revenue, and the public to ask for medication from physicians who are so stretch they have precious little time to figure out what is really going on, and since the patient asked for it…might as well try it.
Don’t fall into the trap of being diagnosed with an “illness/condition” that has become a disorder just because there are drugs that can benefit from a bigger patient pool.
….and how it will cost the American Public Big Money
The pharmaceutical companies are on the war path again….medicalizing a normal behavior so they can sell brainwashed women a drug to make them feel like they want sex…even when they don’t really want to.
You know those times, when you really do have a headache. Or, the kids have run you ragged all day. Or, your boss blamed you once again for a major mistake with a client that he really made…or your husband hasn’t showered in days, went out in the mud on the atv, and now wants to “get it on.”
You got it…those times too. Just pop a little pill and you’ll be all set…ready to jump in the sack and have a great time. Yeah…right….
All this is based on a survey done in 1992, (hello what have you done recently?) at the University of Chicago. (In the interest of full disclosure, UC was where I went to school way back when to get my Masters degree.)
In this survey, 1,500 women were asked to answer yes or no to seven questions, including things like lack of desire for sex, anxieties about “sexual performance,” and difficulties with lubrication, that had gone on for at least 2 months.
If the women answered yes to just one question…they were included in the group experiencing “sexual dysfunction.”
Since 43% of the women admit to at least one problem, they were labeled Sexually Dysfunctional.
Pretty scary, right? You have a yeast infection that lasts forever, as some of them can, and you’re sexually dysfunctional.
Your husband is having an affair and for some reason you have no interest in having sex, and you’re sexually dysfunctional.
Or, my personal favorite…you’ve stopped lubricating as well as you used to. Menopause hit with a big thud. You’re sexually dysfunctional.
This is a big duh. Lessening of lubrication occurs because you don’t have the same amount of hormones after menopause. They’ve now made a normal part of aging a dysfunction.
Will it surprise you to learn big pharma is hot on the heels of developing special meds to fix this disorder…you know…the one you didn’t know you had and aren’t really all that concerned with.
But it has a huge market…almost half of the women of a certain age will “need” this pill.
Think of the profits, think of how many men will eagerly to buy their wives the new pills, think of the unknown side effects.
Think of how specious the research is that this whole mess is based on.
I think I’ll pass.
The initials in the name stand for Female Sexual Arousal Disorder.
The name itself was coined when a University of Chicago Sociology Professor (Ed Laumann) re-analyzed a 1992 survey asking women to answer yes or no to whether they had experienced any of seven sexual problems or concerns for 2 months or more during the previous year.
The questions included seven issues, including lack of desire, anxiety about “sexual performance,” and difficulties with lubrication.
About 1500 women were included in the survey.
This new look at the data found 43% of the women answered yes to at least one of the questions.
That’s all it took…just one yes out of seven…to be labeled as having Female Sexual Arousal Disorder.
A very short step from difficulties or disinterest to having a “disorder.”
Even though a strong article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, a highly cited weekly medical journal that publishes peer-reviewed original medical research, cautioned that these survey results were “not equivalent to clinical diagnosis” the die had been cast.
It was too juicy an opportunity to pass by. Even though there is no way of knowing if the number is accurate or even valid, it has been quoted extensively and widely used to justify medicalizing women’s sexuality.
Sure enough…the process has continued…it won’t surprise you at all to hear that the pharmaceutical companies are now hot on the trail of finding the perfect pill, salve, or potion that will “cure” FSAD.
Doesn’t matter that decreased lubrication is a very common occurrence after menopause. Decreased lubrication is not dysfunction…it’s life! It’s what happens to almost all of us. Are we all dysfunctional? All sick?
I don’t think so…
Dr Sandra Leiblum, professor of psychiatry at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and a clinical psychologist, is very concerned about this trend to redefine normal changes of aging as dysfunction.
She believes real dysfunction is much less prevalent than 43%, and that the figure has contributed to an over medicalization of women’s sexuality. “I think there is dissatisfaction and perhaps disinterest among a lot of women, but that doesn’t mean they have a disease,” she said at an educational workshop addressing these very issues.
There is more to come about how normal changes of aging are being redefined as dysfunctions, opening the way to redefining these “dysfunctions” as medical disorders…and you know who is working on a variety of pills and potions that will cure the disorders.
There is more on FSAD in the category FSAD…just click on the FSAD link in the Category listing.
